Brig Gen Olukolade said the plane damaged by anti-aircraft fire on Friday had returned to base safely, while the "terrorist base" was subsequently "completely destroyed".

This is the first time Boko Haram has been reported to have used such heavy weaponry against aircraft.

A Maiduguri resident told the BBC that the city was unusually quiet on Friday, with most people staying inside.

Brig Gen Olukolade said "several thousand" troops had been sent to the three north-eastern states to tackle Boko Haram.

The three semi-desert states, which border Niger, Chad and Cameroon, are roughly the size of England or the US state of Illinois but have a population of just 10 million.

The BBC's Will Ross in Abuja says targeting Boko Haram's rural bases or training camps should pose no great challenge for the military; the hardest part of this campaign will be in urban areas like Maiduguri, where the militants are living among the civilian population.

The president said the army would take "all necessary action" to "put an end to the impunity of insurgents and terrorists", saying they had taken down the Nigerian flag and replaced it with a foreign emblem in some parts of the country.

Human rights organisations have criticised some of the Nigerian military's previous operations because of the resulting civilian casualties.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language, is fighting to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state in the north.

Although they often attack Christians and government targets, they have also killed many Muslim civilians.